


Comets and Ever Increasing Sobriety

by ladygray99



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Drunk Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:13:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygray99/pseuds/ladygray99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Larry and Don orbit each other in an odd way. Like comets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comets and Ever Increasing Sobriety

Don blinked at the ceiling. It wasn't like they'd never done this before. They'd done it three times before. It had just never happened sober.

The first time Don had been twenty one. Charlie had insisted on dragging his favorite orphaned professor home for the holidays. They'd been in the back yard drunk on too much fortified holiday cheer. Don wasn't sure how they'd gone from Larry pontificating on the glory of the heavens to pressed against the house bringing each other off roughly with their hands. To this day Don's not sure how it happened but he remembers the look on Larry's face, his eyes floating off into the heavens leaving Don behind.

The second time Don had a few days off from fugitive retrieval and was in the area. He'd gone looking for Charlie with an odd desire to take his baby brother out for a beer. Instead he found Charlie was at a conference in Milwaukee and Larry was occupying his office muttering to himself about gravity. Don decided he wanted that beer anyways. In the end he had ground Larry into the cheep motel mattress trying to yank Larry out of the heavens like gravity and drag him down into the dirt with the rest of them.

The third time Larry came to him. Don had been half in his funeral suit and halfway through a bottle of Jack. Larry had spoken eloquently at the service talking about how he and Margaret had bonded in Princeton and how she had, one dark night, bailed out him, Charlie, and half the Princeton swim squad when a prank didn't go off as planned.

Later when Larry had stood at the door Don didn't wait for him to speak. Only crushed his lips to Larry's wanting to be floating in Larry's vast cosmos rather than tied to the reality of earth.

This time they had been sober. Every step and movement became slow, calculated, weighed down by sobriety and reality. Don was sure it had started weeks before when he went looking for God in Larry's head and instead found particles and universal paradox that kept Larry awake and Don questioning.

It had been another one of those conversations that should have probably been fortified with alcohol but instead was happening sober so the first touch of hands that was traditionally ignored became like the clashing of continents. The flush of cheeks that should have been masked by alcohol was now exposed for what it was.

When Don pressed himself against Larry and Larry against the wall Larry seemed shorter. Don wondered, quite sensibly, if Larry had lost height in space, if his depleted bones hand shrunk under the onslaught of earth's gravity. Latter when Don was moving slowly and carefully in him he had to ask Larry to open his eyes. He had never closed his eyes the times before. Now Don stared at the ceiling, glad the house was quiet and void of others, completely unsure how to explain this should anyone ask, this time not even having booze as an excuse.

"Comets." Larry said beside him.

"What?"

"Comets. Long erratic orbits taking years, centuries, for most of their life just cold hunks of rock, ice, frozen gas, then, every so often they near the sun and flair to life for a short moment, only to go cold as they continue their orbit back out to the stars."

"Comets." Don repeated carefully.

"Comets."


End file.
